Abu Ghraib

ARTICLES ABOUT ABU GHRAIB BY DATE - PAGE 4

Documentaries necessarily leave a thousand untold stories in the dust, and often you're left wondering about angles and alleyways not taken. What's that person's story? Yunis Khatayer Abbas very nearly was one of those untold stories. The freelance Iraqi journalist, who worked as a cameraman, interpreter and all-around fixer for, among others, Britain's esteemed Channel 4, appeared for a few seconds in the film "Gunner Palace." That documentary's co-creator, Michael Tucker (who works with his wife, Petra Epperlein)

BOMBS KILL 63: Two truck bombs shattered markets in Tal Afar on Tuesday, killing at least 63 people and wounding dozens in the second assault in four days on a predominantly Shiite Muslim city hit by a resurgence in violence a year after it was held up as a symbol of U.S. success. After the bombings, suspected Sunni insurgents tried to ambush ambulances carrying the injured out of the northwestern city but were driven off by police gunfire, Iraqi officials said. OTHER DEATHS: Iraqi police reported at least 109 people were killed or found dead nationwide.

Maan Alhesawi marked Saddam Hussein's hanging with Honduran cigars and vodka in Albany Park. By Saturday afternoon, the 35-year-old taxi driver's only regret was that the phone lines to Iraq were still too jammed for him to call his family back in Najaf and share in their joy. Alhesawi, a Shiite Muslim, was among thousands of Iraqi exiles in the United States who watched television coverage of Hussein's last moments. Many Iraqi immigrants' feelings of happiness after the hanging of the "Butcher of Baghdad" were followed by trepidation that a surge in violence would follow in the war-torn nation.

Days after shipping out for Iraq, a soldier convicted of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib during a previous tour was ordered back to his home base, officials said Friday. Spec. Santos Cardona of Fullerton, Calif., had departed Ft. Bragg, N.C., on Monday with his unit, the 23rd Military Police Company, and was in Kuwait, preparing to move into Iraq, when the Army made its decision for his own safety. "We are extremely concerned, in light of the publicity about his situation, about his personal safety," said an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, Paul Boyce.

It took six years and three label deals, but West Side native Lupe Fiasco finally has released the debut album that hip-hop insiders have been buzzing about since last autumn. Anticipation for the release of "Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liquor" (Atlantic) was whetted by Lupe's cameo on Kanye West's multimillion-selling 2005 album, "Late Registration." Pirated mixes of Lupe's album have been circulating on the Internet since last spring; one of them even earned a premature rave review in the Village Voice.

By John Huddleston who teaches art at Middlebury College in Vermont. He is the author-photographer of "Killing Ground: The Civil War and the Changing American Landscape." | September 10, 2006

Things as They Are: Photojournalism in Context Since 1955 By Mary Panzer Aperture Foundation and World Press Photo, 384 pages, $75 Another collection of the greatest hits of news photography we do not need. The authors and editors of "Things as They Are" have resisted that temptation. Instead, from the large pool of world photojournalism over the last 50 years, they have selected a number of evocative photographic series and have provided a meaningful historical and critical text.

"Where's the outrage?" trumpeted the headline in last Sunday's Perspective section over my story about an atrocity in Iraq in which U.S. troops are accused. The article sought to explore why there has been no great public outcry about the March 12 rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the killing of three members of her family in Iraq at Mahmoudiya. I wrote that people should care but that as a society we have largely written off the incident. The story, now available at chicagotribune.

Abeer Qassim al-Janabi is not a household name, though perhaps she should be. The 14-year-old girl was repeatedly raped, then shot to death in her home March 12. Her body was set on fire. Her mother, father and sister also were murdered. It happened in Iraq, in the village of Mahmoudiya near Baghdad, in the so-called Triangle of Death, the most stressful, violent place in a stressful, violent country. The alleged perpetrators: American troops. Before the incident, the soldiers allegedly downed whiskey, played cards and hit golf balls.

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading prisoners of war, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments. Officials say the amendments would alter a U.S. law passed in the mid-1990s that criminalized violations of the Geneva Conventions, a set of international treaties governing military conduct in wartime.

President Bush has awarded some of the nation's top honors to those whose records are questionable. MAJ. GEN. GEOFFREY MILLER U.S. Army THE HONOR Distinguished Service Cross last week. Army lauded his determination in handling assignments at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. THE DISHONOR Advised use of dog teams at Abu Ghraib, where detainee abuse--including intimidation with dogs--was reported. GEORGE TENET Former CIA director THE HONOR Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.